If there were an election for US House of Representatives today, and the only two candidates on the ballot were Democrat Baron Hill and Republican Mike Sodrel, who would you vote for?

41% Baron Hill (D)
49% Mike Sodrel (R)
10% Undecided

2010 will be the fifth straight time Democratic Congressman Baron Hill has gone head-to-head with Republican former Congressman Mike Sodrel for the opportunity of representing Indiana’s 9th congressional district. The seat, in the southeast of the state, has changed hands twice. Hill beat Sodrel in 2002 during their first match-up. Sodrel beat Hill in 2004, but lost the seat back to Hill in 2006. Hill successfully defended the seat against Sodrel in 2008:

Year

Candidate

Votes

Percent

2008

Baron Hill (D)
Mike Sodrel (R)
D. Schansberg (LIBERT)

181,281
120,529
11,994

57.8%
38.4%
3.8%

2006

Baron Hill (D)
Mike Sodrel (R)
D. Schansberg (LIBERT)

110,454
100,469
9,893

50%
45.5%
4.5%

2004

Baron Hill (D)
Mike Sodrel (R)Al Cox (LIBERT)

142,197
140,772
4,541

49.5%
49%
1.6%

2002

Baron Hill (D)
Mike Sodrel (R)
Jeff Melton (GREEN)
Al Cox (LIBERT)

96,654
87,169
2,745
2,389

51.2%
46.1%
1.4%
1.3%

Given the district’s electoral history, it would be safe to assume both candidates have strong name recognition.

After Hill beat Sodrel in 2008, CQ wrote that “the one-sided election result in 2008 had brought an end to the rivalry between Democratic incumbent Hill and Republican Sodrel, one of the longest-running rivalry in the nation’s congressional politics.” When Sodrel once again threw his hat into the ring last year, they said “it seems likely that Republican strategists would prefer a fresher face as their 2010 challenger to Hill.”

It’s likely that both Hill and the White House are aware of his troubles. Obama recently singled him out for praise for his courageous vote on health care, and Rahm Emanuel traveled to the district to do a fundraiser for Hill last month.

But that may hurt more than it helps. Obama’s very low job approval numbers in the district (38% approve, 58% disapprove) might be hurting Hill, too. The race had recently been rated “lean Democratic” by the Cook Political Report, making Hill’s low numbers somewhat surprising. When this poll is viewed in combination with the recent election results in Massachusetts and our polling in AR-2, OH-1, and NY-1, a pattern of strong, anti-congressional Democratic sentiment begins to emerge.

Individual Mandate

Like in the previous three swing districts, we looked at the proposed individual mandate, which would fine people for not buying private insurance, and it remains extremely unpopular.

Thinking about the proposal that requires everyone to either carry private health insurance or be fined, are you strongly in favor, somewhat in favor, somewhat opposed, or strongly opposed?

Similar to the NY-01, when people were given the option of buying into a government-run Medicare program, opposition to the individual mandate dropped substantially, from 60% to only 40%.

Requiring people to buy insurance only from private companies is simply very unpopular. Even in Hill’s Republican leaning district, the alternative–increasing payroll taxes to give everyone government-run health insurance (single payer)–had slightly more support in a conservative-leaning district:

If the bill did not require people to buy health insurance, but instead, increased a payroll tax to provide everyone with basic government run health insurance through Medicare … would you be strongly in favor, somewhat in favor, somewhat opposed, or strongly opposed?

If Hill did vote for a health care bill with the individual mandate removed, it would neither improve or worsen his poll numbers, leaving him still 8 points behind Sodrel. When people are informed that the individual mandate in the bill would result in a fine for not buying private insurance, support for the health care bill drops sharply. But, providing people the option to buy in to a government-run alternative significantly softens opposition to the individual mandate in swing districts. As Democrats work on a way to possibly “fix” the bill using reconciliation, this is a data point they should keep in mind.

Similar to the NY-01, when people were given the option of buying into a government-run Medicare program, opposition to the individual mandate dropped substantially, from 60% to only 40%. But when. . .

It’s likely that both Hill and the White House are aware of his troubles. Obama recently singled him out for praise for his courageous vote on health care, and Rahm Emanuel traveled to the district to do a fundraiser for Hill last month.

If Rahm is willing to publicly support the guy, offhand I’d wager we probably need him out of office.

OK, sarcasm aside, what are this troubled candidate’s actual issue positions? His voting and activist history? Which insider clubs count him as a member?

Why should we feel an urgent need to see this candidate win just because he is a Democrat?

Forgive me, Jon, it’s just that I’d like to see more on the candidate himself before I look into your argument that altering the health care “reform” legislation somewhat would rescue him. You don’t alter legislation to save Democrats. You alter legislation to serve the nation’s broad public.

Well, I don’t think Jon is saying we need to support Hill; he is just givng facts, facts that the Administration and the Congressional leadership should be payiing attention to.

In fact, FDL in the past has pointed to Hill as a lousy Democrat, definitely a Blue Dog.
It will be another case of Coakley v. Brown, only worse, because Hill votes more conservatively than Coakley probably would have (leaving aside the questions about the campaign, just voting).

I don’t think his point is to get us to help rescue the candidate. It’s to motivate the candidate to fix this crappy bill. The only thing that motivates them besides the money we can’t compete with is the threat of losing their jobs. So he’s pointing out that fixing this crappy bill would help some of these critters keep their jobs so that they think of bucking Rahm and Obama and getting rid of the mandate without a public option. I agree about public support from Rahm equalling find a primary challenger, but don’t mind pressuring him to kill Frankenstein while he’s still around.

I don’t believe there is much the Party can do now for 10, what we can hope for is that Cantor, Mitch, Hannty, Pence, Bonehead, Steele, Tweety keep showing up on TV and remind folks why they feared those wack jobs to begin with. But the illusion of Obama, busted, repalced with a narritive of partisan corruption and WS pay to play, his power over the electorate gone with the image.

It is safe to say that Obama is none the wiser as a result of the Coakley loss which belies some of the favored tales about him. One such tale is that Obama is an inherently nice guy full of promise and personally well liked. The other is that he is intelligent.

Well, the fact that he carries no coat tails that might benefit other Democratic candidates seems at odds with the idea that he is well liked (I for one detest the man). And the fact that he ignores evidence that his HCR policy that is the Senate bill is not popular, shows him to be arrogant and dense but certainly not particularly bright.

Obama had set his trajectory as president from the very beginning and he will not deviate from it and his presidency will be a failure as a result. He is basically a free marketeer enamored of the monied class, hypocritical, weak and not trustworthy. Given his basic nature we can expect nothing momentous or worthwhile from this man.

John Marty, author of the single payer bill, in MN, is suggesting we change our terminology to be “premiums” rather that “taxes”. But it seems that even asking people to pay more in taxes, they are willing.

Congress (mostly dems) spent a whole year cobbling together a horrible 2000 page bill for HCR that does nothing about the cost of health care, only health insurance.

Now the public is voting out dems based on what they’ve done and the rest are scared so they think they can slap some “fixes” on what they’ve come up with and push it through and everything will be all right.

I don’t think so. Start over and go after health care costs next time.

On Sunday, longtime Washington hand David Gergen took umbrage with John McCain’s recent attack ads, charging that the Senator was using coded messaging to paint Barack Obama as “outside the mainstream” and “uppity.”

The guy just looks like an old white guy to me…and a blue dog to boot. The Supreme Court just ruled that corporations can now buy elections in broad daylight as opposed to skulking in the shadows and I’m supposed to care about some old white conservative guy with a ‘D’ next to his name? Have you heard that Pelosi is throwing in the towel on HCR?Yup.

The symbol of the Democratic party was never really a donkey but an ass. Still I think the party could use an upgrade but I am torn between the weasel and a lemming. I can’t decide which is more appropriate.

Obama will calmly go on about his fighting on behalf of the middle class and against the insurance and drug makers entrenched private interests. And about getting tough with the banks and again assuring us that the middle class is uppermost in his mind. Further he claims with all sincerity that countries must engage in war in order to establish a peaceful world.

All this is of course absolutely clear and self evident because he is proclaiming that to be the case. But all these proclamations are absolutely false and go counter to the wishes of the vast majority of the population. For me that is the very definition of arrogance.

The reason I responded with what I did (“Why would we want to rescue this candidate?”) is because Jon’s framing – “look at this troubled candidate! and look at this poll concerning the health care legislation issue!” – creates the sense that Jon wants this candidate rescued, and suggests that the route to rescue is to change the legislation in desirable direction. We can all agree that the public option is a minimal condition for accepting any health care reform legislation. I simply don’t need, myself, to see that fact within a frame of *rescuing Democrats from electoral losses*. Electoral losses are a primary concern for the Democrats who are partisan first and (maybe if at all) reformers second.

Myself? I don’t care what party or faction reforms health care so long as the reform itself is not simply an objectively tyrannical upward wealth transfer scheme enforced by the government, as is the case now.

Hill represents the district I came from in Indiana. He is an unworthy successor to Lee Hamilton. I’ve had extremely bad constituent service from him; after visiting his Washington office and specifically asking for follow up he never bothered. In response to a constituent traveling to Washington, he just blew me off. In the Sodrel/Hill rematch in 2006 I made calls to GoTV and contacted his campaign staff saying I was helping, but I expected him to do better service. Nope… he continued to blow me off even after receiving volunteer help.

Worst representative in my life. Unfortunately he’s got county Democratic party machines behind him. I’ve documented this record of poor service to the Monroe County Democratic committee… the most they do is say they don’t take sides in primaries, but they certainly did help with polling and fundraising in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

OFA asked me to show us at a fundraiser to thank him for his votes on health care. Since I no longer live in is district, I contacted local politically active people to show up and call for single payer.

Sodrel and Hill both advance an policy agenda that does not help the district. And unfortunately both will likely be general election candidates again – in 2010 at least. If Sodrel wins in 2010 maybe a primary opponent for Hill would have a chance in 2012.

“Thinking about the proposal that requires everyone to either carry private health insurance or be fined, are you strongly in favor, somewhat in favor, somewhat opposed, or strongly opposed?”

And with no strong public option on the exchange why the hell would anyone feel good about this mandate? Thrown to the corporate wolves, Mr. working class. I’m sure the Nate crowd will think this is a leading question but it’s fair to ask it this way when the bill only offers cost relief to a “sliver” of the uninsured population.

And it behooves everyone on the left at least to come to grips with who we are dealing with as far as Obama is concerned. He seems to be under some misbegotten delusion that he is a free agent and can impose policies that no one wants and whose sole beneficiaries are the very people he decries.

This is a man not to be trusted for his arrogance and all his other hamartia, as you rightly point out.

A few minutes ago, commentators on MSNBC were discussing whether Barack Obama has become “too arrogant.”

The seeds of this narrative started last month, when Karl Rove – of all people – referred to Obama as “coolly arrogant” and said that “even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”

Of course, Rove said this during a breakfast at the Capitol Hill Club. The delicious irony, no?

But when Rove and others call Obama “arrogant,” what they really want to say is “uppity.” How dare Obama think of himself as special!

As John Ridley observed: “Arrogant, of course, is a euphemism. In the monochromatic bunkers from which old-schoolers cling to power the true word they use is ‘uppity’ when hurled at blacks. It’s the “B-word” for women.”

But, of course, if someone from “the left” says it it doesn’t mean the same thing.

Sad to say, I made a few calls on Baron Hill’s behalf in 2006 via Moveonpac.org. Ugh! I’ve quit them now, and threw away their T-shirt I got for making hundreds of calls for Congressional and Senatorial candidates. Many a blue dog did I call for. Moveon is such a slave, and I was too, to the party. I even regret the calls I made for Sheldon Whitehouse.